Anish Kapoor at the Guggenheim: The Dimensions of Memory by Jan Garden Castro

Anish Kapoor’s Memory is a new kind of monument—a 24-ton, Cor-ten steel, site-specific work that poses phenomenological questions about inner space, mind, and being. Designed for both the New York and Berlin Guggenheims, it debuted in Berlin in November 2008 as the first Deutsche Bank commission. In New York through March 28, Memory forms part of the museum’s 50th-anniversary celebration.

Kapoor’s seemingly elemental forms embody multiplicities, playing with voids that appear solid, sculpture that reads as two-dimensional, volume that marks time, color that changes scale, and transformations of self and gender. His work relates to that of other experimenters, including Joseph Beuys, Barnett Newman, and Paul Neagu. Kapoor also explores historical contexts and self-generated forms, as seen in his wax and oil paint sculpture Svayambh, whose blood-like wax form was variously shaped during its slow passage through the portals of historic museums in Nantes, Munich, and London.